1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to improved file section dividers for office filing products which are configured to define pockets of different sizes and which have particular utility in portable, expandable filing cases.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In conventional office filing products an expandable office file is often divided from front to back into separate sections or compartments by a plurality of laterally extending file section dividers. Conventional file section dividers are typically formed as generally rectangular, expansive sheets of stiff but somewhat flexible material. These sheets extend from one side of the file enclosure to the other and are generally equipped with labeling tabs that project upwardly from the normally horizontal upper edge of the divider. Labeling indicia are placed on or inserted into these labeling tabs so as to identify the contents of the compartment in front of or behind the particular file section divider bearing the labeling tab. File section dividers such as these have been used for many, many years and are standard articles of office supplies.
Conventional file section dividers are somewhat deficient in that they are designed to accommodate only papers of a uniform, standard size within the filing compartments or sections to which they relate. For example, many file section dividers are constructed in a size suitable for storing within their confining compartments papers that are eight and a half inches in width and eleven inches in length. While conventional file section dividers are quite adequate for this purpose, the need often arises for storing papers or other articles formed in a different size within filing compartments designed to receive papers of the particular standard size for which the file section dividers are designed. Smaller papers and articles can thereby easily become crumpled or overlooked when stored in compartments delineated by conventional file section dividers, due to their relatively small size. Smaller papers and other articles stored between conventional file section dividers are also easily overlooked.
This problem is particularly acute in the case of portable, collapsible files where the access to each file section compartment may be rather limited. Small notes and other papers can easily drop down between the larger papers for which the file is designed. The inability to locate such smaller documents and other articles within a portable, expandable filing case represents a course of continuing frustration and annoyance to persons utilizing such articles.
One approach to dealing with this problem was to provide file section dividers for office filing products that are equipped with pockets or pouches designed to receive articles that are smaller in size than the papers or documents that the file section dividers are designed to separate. By providing a pouch or pocket on the surface of a file section divider, the user of the file is able to more quickly and expeditiously locate undersized documents and papers within a filing compartment. Prior U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/210,983, presently pending, provides such a system and is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety. However, in that prior system only a single pocket is formed on each pocket divider. The pockets formed within the depicted embodiments of an expandable filing case disclosed in that prior application are all the same size.